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The cobblestone streets of the summer island they’d taken port in were beautifully cut, pounded into uniform rows that glistened in the rain and shone in the sun. They were also, Nami found out, completely impractical for wearing sandals. She’d been heading back to the Sunny, multiple bags of clothing on each arm, when the thong of her right shoe had snapped unexpectedly, and she’d stumbled so suddenly that her ankle had twisted underneath her and nearly sent her sprawling to the ground. Yelping, she nursed her wounded ankle as she struggled to pick up her bags, none of which unfortunately contained a spare pair of shoes. Nami frowned, sighed, and unhooked the strap of her other sandal, walking back to the docks with the warmth of the cobblestones under her bare feet.
When she arrived back at the ship, she threw her shoes down on the grass and sank onto the deck, picking at the strap of her broken sandal. They were a washed-out turquoise color embellished with jewels that she’d picked up in Alabasta with Vivi after the war had ended. They’ll look so nice with the color of your hair! Vivi had said, and Nami felt a surge of fond happiness at the memory, although it made her all the more upset to see them broken.
A wave of anger came over her suddenly at the sight of the broken strap, and in a huff she tossed the shoe away from her, threading a hand through her hair and pulling at the roots. The sandal bounced and landed next to where Luffy was wrestling with Usopp near the mast, who paused and bent down to pick it up, abandoning what he was doing previously as he often did when something new caught his interest.
“Oi, Nami!” he called out, holding the shoe above his head. He jogged over to where Nami was sitting amongst her fallen bags and crouched down in front of her, extending his hand out to offer her back the sandal. “You drop this?”
“No,” Nami scowled, sounding crestfallen, but grabbed the shoe from him anyway. “The strap’s broken.”
Luffy studied the shoe thoughtfully, chin in hand, his brow furrowing under the shade of his hat. After several uncharacteristically quiet moments, his eyes lit up.
“I can fix it,” he declared, and ran off before Nami could protest.
“Luffy, wait!” she called after him, but even if he’d heard her, Nami knew it wouldn’t make a difference. When Luffy made up his mind, there was little anyone could do to stop him.
When he came back his arms were filled with a variety of tools, and Nami wasn’t sure if he owned them or had simply borrowed them from various members of the crew. A needle and thread, a pair of scissors, and a small hammer were cradled in his arms, and several nails sat perched between his lips. When he made it back to Nami he plopped down in front of her and fanned the tools out in front of him, picking up the broken sandal gingerly. Panic shot through Nami when he took the scissors in his other hand. Even if she couldn’t find a cobbler to fix them, she still wanted to keep the sandal for sentimental reasons, and she couldn’t keep something that was cut into pieces.
“Luffy, please don’t--!” she started to say, reaching an arm out to take the shoe back, but she paused when her eyes caught the fluid, practiced motion of Luffy’s hands as he used the scissors to carefully snip away the frayed, ripped edges of the torn leather thong. He squinted his eyes as he pulled brown thread through a needle with the practiced ease of someone who’d done it many times before, hemming the edge of the strap in order to keep it uniform with her other shoe. Nami had a hard time hiding her surprise; Luffy was more of a destructive force rather than a creative one, after all. She’d never seen him make something outside of the occasional crudely-done drawing.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” she asked him as he pulled a short nail from his mouth.
“Ace taught me,” he explained, his voice muffled from speaking around the other nails. Nami watched his mouth curl into a smile, and something tugged at her heart. Nojiko was still happy and healthy in Cocoyashi, still there for her to think of and write letters to and hopefully one day visit again, but the distance still pulled at her, and it was hard for Nami to even talk about her sister without feeling the weight of the time they’d spent apart. She and the rest of the crew had shied away from bringing up Ace since they’d met again in Shabody, but Luffy brought him up easily now, smiling at some distant memory that Nami couldn’t see. Her eyes flickered to the large, x-shaped scar that sat under his vest, but she looked away quickly as her own hand wandered unconsciously to the tattoo on her bicep, fingered the scar tissue that lay underneath.
Luffy hammered a nail through the leather thong and into the sole of the shoe, a nail that Nami noticed seemed specifically made for shoe repair. It made sense, the more she thought about it. Luffy was constantly tearing around in those impractical sandals, and rarely did she ever see him in new ones. Until now, she’d just attributed that to the sheer amount of luck that seemed to follow him everywhere he went. She’d never considered the fact that he might be fixing them himself.
After the final nail had been hammered into place, Luffy tugged at the strap briefly to test his work, then handed the sandal back to Nami with a grin. She examined it for a moment, taking in the surprising neatness of the repair job, and slipped the shoe onto her foot. The thongs slid comfortably between her toes and didn’t give.
“Thanks Luffy,” she said softly, still slightly in awe at how quick and efficiently he’d managed to fix the sandal. The jewels on the straps glinted against the sunlight, and Luffy’s grin widened until Nami could practically see every one of his teeth.
“I was always breaking my shoes as a kid, so Ace showed me how to fix them!” he said proudly, happy for the praise. For as much as Luffy seemed to base most of his decision-making around what he felt like doing, he was always eager to please his friends.
“You’ll have to teach me sometime,” Nami said, and Luffy nodded eagerly before picking himself up off the deck and gathering his tools. When he finally ran off again to resume his roughhousing with Usopp, Nami’s mind wandered back to when Nojiko had taught her how to fix tears in her dress, and she smiled.